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Alex the Genius
"Alex the Genius" is the second episode of Pikmin's first season. It originally aired on NBC in the United States on January 14, 1990. It was the first episode written by Jon Vitti. It is also the show's first normal episode, as well as the first to feature the iconic opening sequence. In the episode, Alex cheats on an intelligence test and is declared a genius, so he is sent to a school for gifted children. Though he initially enjoys being treated as a genius, he begins to see the downside of his new life. Plot The Pikmin Club spend a night of playing Scrabble and Red Pikmin reminds Alex that he is supposed to be stimulating his brain with various vocabulary if he hopes to pass his intelligence test. He cheats his way to victory by coming up with his own word, "kwyjibo", basing its definition on an insulting description of Olimar. This angers Olimar and he chases after Alex, much to the embarrassment of his group. At Pikminville Elementary School, Alex is busted for vandalism by Mr. Krupp, who has been informed by class genius Ulises Pikmin. Faced with the prospect of failing an intelligence test, Alex surreptitiously switches exams with Ulises (as a way to pay him back for getting him in trouble). When the school psychologist, Dr. Pryor, studies the results, he identifies Alex as a genius, to the delight of Olimar and Margo, who enroll him in a new school. However, Blue Pikmin is not fooled by his supposed genius and still believes Alex to be a moron; Krupp shares her belief, but takes advantage of Alex's departure from the school. At the Enriched Learning Center for Gifted Children, A;lex feels out of place among the other students with advanced academic skills. Meanwhile, Margo attempts to stimulate Alex with a little culture by taking the group to the opera. However, this proves disastrous as Alex and Olimar are quite disruptive, much to Yellow Pikmin's joy. Ostracized by his brilliant classmates, Alex visits his former school, where his old friends reject him because of his perceived intelligence. On the bright side, he enjoys newfound attention from Homer and he covers for them when Margo makes another attempt to stimulate Alex's brain by taking them to a film festival. After Alex's chemistry experiment explodes, filling the school lab with green goo, he confesses to Dr. Pryor that he switched tests with Ulises. Dr. Pryor realizes that he was never a genius and has him readmitted to Pikminville Elementary. Alex returns home and tells Olimar that he had cheated on the intelligence test, but he is glad they are closer than ever. Though Olimar is touched by this sentiment, he is ultimately upset and angry at Alex for lying to him about the test and chases Alex through the house, only for Alex to lock the door of his bedroom. Red Pikmin pronounces that Alex is back to being his normal, dumb self. Production The concept for the episode developed from writer Jon Vitti coming up with a long list of bad things Alex would do for attention imagining the potential consequences. The only idea that developed into an interesting episode concept was Alex's cheating on an IQ test. This idea was based on an incident from Vitti's childhood when a number of his classmates did not take an intelligence test seriously and suffered poor academic treatment because of it. Because Alex was already obviously unintelligent, Vitti reversed the problem for his episode. Vitti used all his memories of elementary school behavior to produce a draft script of 71 pages, substantially above the required length of about 45 pages. Director David Silverman had difficulty devising a legible Scrabble board for the opening scene which would convey the idea that the Pikmin Club were able to devise only very simple words. The design of Alex's visualization of the math problem was partially inspired by the art of Saul Steinberg. The increasing appearance of numbers in that sequence derived from Silverman's use of a similar tactic when he had to develop a set design for the play The Adding Machine. Each successive scene in the sequence was shorter than the one before it by exactly one frame. The scene where Alex writes his confession was done as one long take to balance the shorter scenes elsewhere in the episode. It was animated in the United States by Dan Haskett. There were a few problems with the finished animation for the episode. The banana in the opening scene was colored incorrectly, as the Korean animators were unfamiliar with the fruit, and the final bathtub scene was particularly problematic, including issues with lip sync. The version in the broadcast episode was the best of several attempts. Title card music The title card music for this episode was the title card music from the Hanna-Barbera animated series Snorks. Reception and legacy In its original American broadcast, "Alex the Genius" finished 47th place in the weekly ratings for the week of January 8–14, 1990 with a Nielsen rating of 12.7. It was the second highest rated show on NBC that week. Home release The episode was released first on home video on VHS in October 1991 on the Pikmin VHS, Call of the Pikmin; the episode was paired with season one episode "The Call of the Pikmin". The episode would finally see the DVD release as a part of the ''Pikmin ''Season One DVD set, which was released on September 25, 2001. Meledandri, Wedge, Silverman, and Vitti participated in the DVD's audio commentary.